At Microsoft Tech Ed in New Zealand Microsoft has finally confirmed that front facing cameras (as well as support for them) is officially coming with the Mango update which is due to hit soon.
The news was confirmed in a session at Tech Ed today by a Microsoft staff member, and confirmed in a tweet from Windows Phone NZ. We've seen a few Mango devices so far, but only one is available in the wild. Based on this news, its likely that the majority of Windows Phone "7.5" hardware will sport a front facing camera.
Neowin can confirm this news, as staff members saw devices a few months back already sporting front facing cameras. We also reported back on January 10 that Microsoft was working on a FaceTime competitor for the platform, uncovering references in the SDK for a "portrait camera."
In addition to this, Microsoft hinted at Skype integration soon, with the same staff member saying that the front-facing camera in 7.5 devices will support the Skype integration that is coming soon, however, it's still not clear on whether or not this will be an app, or a later OS update.
Last month an icon was spotted in the Mango camera application that allows the user to switch which camera is taking a photo, as seen below.
Mango is the major update to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform, which brings many new features such as multitasking, IE9 support, deep social networking, integrated chat and more. The RTM software is expected to be available to retail devices in the next few weeks and new Mango hardware is releasing around the world slowly, with Fujistu releasing the first handset today.
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